Christ, Our Greater Jonah: A Gospel View of Facing Our Storms of LifeSample

Day 3 Devotional:

The Intensity of Our Storms

Mark 4 verse 37 tells us that the furious storm whipped up the waters of the lake into such a violent intensity that the waves broke over the boat so that the boat was nearly swamped.

The disciples were seasoned fishermen who spent their lives fishing on this lake. They knew how to navigate their way across the waters of this lake. Now, however, in the intensity of this storm, they realised that all their lake navigation skills and experience would not help them. They realised that they needed help beyond their natural human skills and experience.

This is like us, I think. When we face the regular old challenges of our everyday lives we try as best as we can to resolve them and get on with it. We share the difficulties that come to us with our family and our friends, and we ask them to stand with us in prayer, as we rightly should, of course.

If our problems require professional assistance, we go and see a doctor, a lawyer, a financial expert, or whoever. But there are storms that come to us that can be so intense that we realise that real help can only come supernaturally from the Lord Himself.

In the case of the disciples in this storm, we read in verse 38 that Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. He was evidently exhausted from preaching and teaching the crowds all day. The disciples woke Him up in their panic and they said to Him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”

Again, this is like us. Facing the intensity of some of the storms that come to us, we fast and we pray and we fast some more and we pray some more, and yet sometimes, like the disciples, it seems the Lord has gone to sleep on us because we see no change, and we feel like screaming in panic to the Lord, like the disciples in this boat, “Heavenly Father, don’t you care if we drown?”

In verse 39, Jesus got up, He rebuked the wind and He said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. In verse 40, after rebuking the storm, Jesus then turned to His disciples and rebuked them with these words, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”

But, really, can we blame the poor disciples? They looked at the intensity of the storm. They looked at the waves breaking over their hapless boat, drenching them wet, and they panicked! Their faith in God had been blown away by the violent winds of the storm!

So, we can summarise our second "I" by saying that, sometimes, the intensity of our storms blows away our faith in God’s ability and willingness to bring us through our storms of life.